Devolution of Hope
by mari4212
Summary: He didn't know when he stopped believing that he could save Sammy.


**Title:** Devolution of Hope

**Author: **Margaret

**Disclaimer:** Supernatural and all associated characters belong to Kripke. I'm definitely not him. I just enjoy playing with the world he created.

* * *

It was almost twelve years to the date after Mary's death when John got his first big break on tracking her killer. 

And the funny thing was, he almost didn't hear about it. He'd gone to stop a poltergeist attack in the middle of nowhere, Minnesota, left the kids with Bobby so they wouldn't miss too many classes. It took him two days longer than it should have to figure out that the supposed poltergeist haunting the local junior high school wasn't anything of the kind. Two days to see that the desks and chairs were flying because of a pre-pubescent kid with anger issues.

By the time he'd gotten it right, it was too late. The boy self-destructed noisily, and he took three of his classmates with him when he went, injured half a dozen more. John went through the school later, as part of the clean up, and to check that the boy's spirit had left with him. The room he'd been in when it all went wrong? Utter devastation. He'd seen less damage after a tornado.

He was already on his way out of the town when he overheard the locals talking about it. Hunkering over his blueberry cobbler, he listened in as the biddies gossiped. It turned to sawdust and ashes in his mouth as he heard them mention the fire, the death of the mother.

Three hours buried in the local newspaper archives later, he had confirmation. The boy's mother had died the same way Mary had, the fire starting in the ceiling of her son's nursery.

He didn't want to think about what that meant. Besides, Sammy had never showed any signs of having powers. It might just be a coincidence. Still, he'd have to be on the lookout for other children, in the future.

He was late getting back to the boys and too quiet when he did return. He knew that worried Dean, but this wasn't something either of his sons should have to be concerned with. Not yet.

.oo0oo.oo0oo.oo0oo.oo0oo.

It was six years later when Sam left, the fury of their fight ringing in John's ears for hours afterwards.

He'd never admit it, but Sam was too much like him for his own good. John could remember arguing with his own father the same way, leaving at 18 and heading straight for the Marine's recruitment center just to get away.

Problem was, in retrospect, Vietnam was safer than letting Sam go away, unprotected to college. He'd lost friends, had a few scares, but in the end he was with a large group of other guys who all had guns, and he'd been there at the end of the war, when they were disengaging. Sam was heading off into a bunch of civilians, and the things they were fighting hid a damn sight better than the North Vietnamese had.

That was the reason Dean was scared. And a good bit of what had him scared too, honestly. But even if he never let the boys know about it, there was more that he was worried about.

Since that boy six years ago, he'd kept a lookout for children developing powers. And once he'd sifted through the dross of false reports, or of things that didn't turn out to be the kids involved, there were a frightening amount of kids who developed odd gifts and then self-destructed. A lot of them had mysterious fires in their background, though a good percentage still had mothers around.

But it was when he put all the reports in chronological order that the worst aspect surfaced. They were all Sam's age. All of them had been born in '83.

He didn't know what he'd do if Sam ended up like them. But increasingly, as time went on and the reports kept coming in, he wasn't sure if he could stop it from happening.

The last year and a half, things started falling into place. Whatever was happening, it was building up to something. He sent Dean off on more individual hunts, trying to work things out without Dean over his shoulder. His oldest was a lot smarter than he pretended to be, it wouldn't take him long at all to piece together how Sammy was in the middle of all of this.

But John had kept an eye on Sam at school, ever since he'd left. Sam was showing no signs of gaining the kinds of powers the other children did, was settling down instead, with a girl who looked so much like Mary had when she was that age that it made him ache.

Sammy had wanted out, wanted something safe. Looking at him now, John had to think that Sam had made the right decision. He was blending in, off the radar of most supernatural things, and he was happy. The other children, the ones whose powers destroyed them, they had all been unhappy. Miserable, according to most reports. If he was right and the one behind it was a demon trying to mold them into something, maybe the demon needed that misery to come after them.

But if Dean found out about this, found out what he'd discovered about Sam and the others, he wouldn't rest until Sam was safe in his care. He'd pull him back into hunting, and possibly back into the demon's attention.

He was going to have to leave Dean soon, then. Even with the individual hunts, there wasn't enough time to work, enough time to find things out. Dean would figure it out soon, and if he did, there was no order John could give that would keep him from going to protect his brother.

But if he disappeared…

If he left, Dean would get distracted. He'd spend his time hunting for his father, not trying to take care of Sam. And when Dean worried, he dropped thoughts of research, concentrated on the person he couldn't take care of. He'd been miserable and useless on hunts for weeks after Sam had left for Stanford.

John hated using his son's weak points against him like this. He hated taking a part of Dean that he treasured, his unshakable loyalty, and manipulating him with it. But he had to.

The children who self-destructed didn't normally go alone. They took people with them down too. And of all the people who Sam might be around if this demon came after him, Dean would be the one first in the line of fire. Heck, he knew his eldest far to well. Dean would make certain he was in the line of fire if he thought it would help Sam out.

If John wanted to protect both his sons, he'd have to leave. The sooner he was gone, the faster he could get to the bottom of this, the faster he could take on the demon who'd destroyed their family. And the more likely that he could keep Sam from getting drawn down into this too.

He'd found a possible hunt, up in Jericho. And another one down in New Orleans. New Orleans was pressing, someone needed to take care of it immediately, before more people started dying. But Jericho could wait a while. Whatever was up there killed one at a time, at larger intervals. If he sent Dean to New Orleans, he could set things up at Jericho for him, then disappear. Dean would come to find him, fix things there, and then set out searching for him.

.oo0oo.oo0oo.oo0oo.oo0oo.

He didn't know when he stopped believing that he could save Sammy.

It wasn't right after his girlfriend's death. Horrible as it was, as gut-wrenching as it was to remember the pictures of that blonde-haired girl laughing up at Sam, he'd still had some hope for the boys. If anyone could protect Sam from his own despair, it was Dean.

And he didn't think it was before they went to Kansas, either. Maybe after then, though, when Missouri started talking about how Sam had had those visions, how he'd sensed what was going on before anyone else did. That was the first touch of despair then, that Sam hadn't avoided having powers after all.

He was pretty sure that he'd stopped hoping after Chicago, after the demon who called herself Meg. After he realized she'd gone after his son before. The demons were aiming at Sam for certain. It was definitely the time when he stopped thinking there was any way to stop this attack on their family than killing the demon.

Because John knew that Sam didn't understand that about him. Neither did Dean, for that matter. At this point, avenging Mary's death was second in his mind. Protecting his boys, protecting them from what the demon could do to them, that took first place. And if he knew that stopping the hunting would keep the demon away for good, he'd stop it in a heartbeat. Nothing came ahead of his boys.

By the time he woke up in the hospital, Sam's bloody face looking down at him, he knew it was too late. By the time Sam had finished reciting Dean's litany of injuries, he knew that he couldn't do any more to save him. The demon was stronger than John, he'd found that out the hard way. Strong enough that John could never save Sam just by fighting it.

But he could save Dean. And Dean was strong. Stronger than either his father or his brother, even if he didn't realize it. And Sam loved him, loved him whole-heartedly in a way that he could never love John, because of what John had had to do to Dean to keep his youngest safe. If anyone could keep Sam safe, it was Dean.

And in the end, if someone had to make that final call and take him out for his own good, Dean was the only one who loved Sam enough to do it right, to do it without letting him suffer. He was the only one John could trust to take care of Sam till the end.

Doing this would save Dean's life. Might, in the end, save Sammy too. It'd at least give them a better chance than anything else would. For that, any price would be worth paying.

John would do anything for his sons.


End file.
